When something happens year after year, can it really be a fluke?
With that in mind, perhaps we need to revisit the notion that the Hornets shouldn't have as many wins as they have.
With their one-point victory in Portland on Monday, the Hornets are 14-3 in games decided by five points or less this season. Combine that with a 1-7 record in games decided by 15 points or more and you have a team with a negative point differential (-1.2 per game) and a winning record.
heir point differential says the Hornets should be 20-25 at this point, yet instead they're 25-20. The Hornets sit in eighth place in the Western Conference, but statistically, three of the teams behind them in the standings are better.
As it has been written in this space before, the Hornets' record is the most inflated mark in the league.
But this is not new. The Hornets have had a winning record in close games every season since they drafted Chris Paul, and they've had inflated records in four of those five seasons. Only in 2007-08 did they win fewer games (56) than their point differential said they should have (58).
In total, the Hornets are 67-33 (.670) in games decided by five points or less in Paul's four-plus seasons. Only the Mavs (75-32, .701) have a better record in close games in that span.
Former IBF welterweight champion Joshua Clottey is confident that he has what it takes to beat World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao in their fight on March 13th, at the Dallas Cowboy stadium, in Arlington, Texas. In an article at Ghanaweb< Clottey, 32, said “I know its Pacquiao, but I don’t want people thinking that Manny is super, that nobody can beat him. He is a human being like me. He has lost three times and I have also lost three times. We speak, laugh and share jokes together. I promise that I will dethrone him” [Pacquiao].
Clottey doesn’t seem bothered by all the people who are giving him almost zero chance to beat Pacquiao. Clottey has been in against some tough world class opponents during his career, in fights against Miguel Cotto, Zab Judah, Diego Corrales and Antonio Margarito. One problem that Clottey has is that he’s only had mixed results when stepping it.
Clottey has lost to Cotto, Margarito and Carlos Baldomir during his career. There’s no shame in losing to good fighters like them, but Clottey doesn’t have a lot of other wins against notable opponents to make up for his losses against some of the best opponents he’s faced.
In the fights that Clottey has lost, he’s generally fought very well during patches of the fight. However, in almost every case, Clottey has seemed to run out of gas and have his work rate suffer as the rounds progressed late into the fight. Even in some of the fights that Clottey has won, he’s faded late and turned fights that should have been a lopsided win or knockout into a fight that turned to be much closer than it should have.
Pacquiao’s trainer, Freddie Roach, will likely have Pacquiao following a fight plan which involves Pacquiao using quick in and out attacks to avoid getting hit by Clottey. Roach won’t want Pacquiao to stand in front of Clottey and try to slug with him because of Clottey’s bigger size, good hand speed and strong chin.
Clottey isn’t the type of fighter that can easily be knocked out. This is why their March 13th fight could turn out to be a very boring fight with Pacquiao winning it by hitting and running. Roach says that Clottey will make for an exciting fight for fans, but it could turn out completely opposite of that with Pacquiao fighting on the move for 12 rounds.
FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — The maturation of Mark Sanchez is evident in his statistics, decisions and demeanor. The most obvious sign of growth, however, is on his face.
Sanchez stopped shaving about a month ago, after another multi-interception debacle continued his tumultuous rookie season with the Jets. But his play since that Dec. 20 game against Atlanta has transformed as stubble turned to beard, as the Jets won four straight to reach the American Football Conference championship game in Indianapolis on Sunday.
He sees nothing wrong with superstition, with eating at the same restaurants and following the same routine.
“Why change now?” Sanchez said.
On Wednesday, the Jets’ locker room seemed divided between pro-beard and anti-beard contingents. Tight end Dustin Keller described Sanchez’s facial hair as “terrible” and said Sanchez was aiming for the Bushwick Bill look. Others called the beard patchy, uneven and wooly.
For fullback Tony Richardson, it represented something else: full-grown proof of the smartest, safest, most important month of professional football that Sanchez has played this season.
“He doesn’t look like a kid anymore,” Richardson said. “He looks like a grown man now. He’s not playing like a rookie, either, so more power to the beard.”
As Sanchez has risen and fallen between extremes this season, his college coach, Pete Carroll, watched from California. It was Carroll who questioned Sanchez’s decision to turn pro one year early, comments that looked misguided during the Jets’ 3-0 start and spot on during Sanchez’s well-documented struggles.
Sanchez started only 16 games at Southern California. On Sunday, he will start his 18th game as a professional. Carroll, who recently became the Seattle Seahawks’ coach, owns only half as many N.F.L. playoff wins as Sanchez, and he has nothing but praise now for him.
“It has been everything he could have wanted,” Carroll said. “He had to rebound from the reality of the league. He stood tough. His coaches stood tough with him, to have the chance to get on a roll at the end.”
Carroll added: “I couldn’t be happier. I couldn’t be more proud.”
It started when the beard began. After the loss to the Falcons, the fourth game this season in which Sanchez tossed at least three interceptions, running back Thomas Jones pulled him aside.
Jones told Sanchez that he went through the same slumps that Sanchez was experiencing. Both were top-10 draft picks. Both signed lucrative contracts before they played one down. Jones preached patience to Sanchez, noting that his most productive years came in the past two seasons, with his fourth team, over age 30.
“I told him to stay confident in his ability,” Jones said. “He thought he had to put the whole team on his shoulders. He needed to play a role.”
Few understand those circumstances better than Troy Aikman. Before he became an N.F.L. analyst for Fox, Aikman carved out a Hall of Fame career in Dallas. He called his rookie season, in which the Cowboys finished 1-15 and Aikman went 0-11 as a starter, his worst experience in football.
“I try to forget that ever happened,” Aikman said. “It was a miserable time.”
Aikman agreed, in part, with Carroll’s comments before Sanchez was drafted. Aikman said playing quarterback in the N.F.L. had never been more difficult, because the game moves so quickly and the defenses are more complex.
But Aikman also said that quarterbacks entered the league more prepared now than when he played, from 1989 to 2000. Current college quarterbacks run more pro-style offenses and face more pro-style defenses, and the result, Aikman added, has been a run of successful rookie quarterbacks, starting with Ben Roethlisberger in Pittsburgh and continuing to Sanchez.
That the Jets’ offense ranked 20th over all during the regular season, or that Sanchez threw for a combined 282 yards in two playoff games, matters little now. Sanchez is on the cover of Sports Illustrated this week, mouth agape, right fist ready to be thrown in celebration. It is the Jets’ first team cover since 1999.
Sanchez understands what rookie quarterbacks have struggled with since football was invented. He plays for a team with the top-ranked defense and rushing attack. Despite being paid like the leading actor, Sanchez serves his team best as a key member of the supporting cast.
“It’s just his overall approach,” wide receiver Wallace Wright said. “It’s totally different. Think back to where he was during training camp, stuttering with the plays. His growth has been amazing.”
Next up is another playoff game, another Pro Bowl quarterback, only this time, instead of Carson Palmer or Philip Rivers on the other sideline, it will be Peyton Manning, the elite of the elite. Of the four teams remaining, Sanchez is the only unproven commodity, the biggest question mark.
The Colts drafted Manning and built around him, but the Jets constructed a playoff team and gambled on Sanchez as the final piece. Jets Coach Rex Ryan watched first-hand last season as the Ravens advanced this far with another rookie quarterback, Joe Flacco, at the helm. The 2000 Ravens also won the Super Bowlwith the journeyman Trent Dilfer at quarterback.
Can Sanchez do the same? Neither Carroll nor Aikman would predict against him.
“This feels right,” Sanchez said. “This feels good. It feels like you dream it would feel. The biggest thing is not getting caught up in it.”
This was a Finals rematch unlike many other first meetings since a June showdown, slipped into the schedule as the last stop on a tailspin of a four-game Western swing for Orlando and just before L.A. heads out for a monster eight-gamer, on a Monday night, with neither team playing particularly well, on a holiday with the league driving attention to Atlanta and Memphis for Martin Luther King Day. It wasn't like the buildup for Lakers-Celtics a season ago or even Lakers-Cavaliers a few weeks ago on Christmas that didn't have the benefit of the playoff storyline.
Everyone -- the NBA, the networks, Nike and its merry band of puppeteers -- cranked the volume for the Cleveland game. But the first reunion since last year's Finals, a pretty competitive championship series at that despite lasting only five games, just sort of happened, a strange development in the hype-machine world.
Then again, these weren't exactly the Magic and Lakers circa June.
It's not just the roster changes either, with Vince Carter in for Hedo Turkoglu for the Eastern Conference champions and Ron Artest replacing Trevor Ariza here. L.A. has misfired lately, relatively speaking, having lost three of the previous six to keep the race for No. 1 in the West just interesting enough that now it may take all the way until the All-Star break for the rest of the conference to deliver concession speeches. Orlando, meanwhile, had dropped six of eight before Monday.
And not just typical slump defeats. The string of four consecutive setbacks would have been bad enough, but they were magnified by the list of the opponents: the Bulls, Pacers, Raptors and Wizards. Then, when the losses were to a better quality of opponents, (the Trail Blazers and Nuggets on the road), the unwanted reality check for the Magic was that the margins were 15 against Portland and 18 against Denver. The lead in the Southeast Division was gone and, just as certain, 2009 was done too.
"We looked back to review how we played and everything else, but I didn't go back and watch all five games," Magic coach Stan Van Gundy of skipping the trip down memory lane to watch the Finals again. "We know how we played in that series. We took a look at that, and we'll go from there."
Jackson, never noted for his diplomacy anyway, said in reference to the Magic losing their way amid injuries and the early Rashard Lewis suspension that "I just don't know what happened to that team in the process." That team being the one that reached the championship series and opened 17-4 this season.
That team or this team or whatever they are, they had enough to respond to the moment by turning a 13-point deficit midway through the second quarter into a nine-point lead with three minutes to play in the third. The Magic just didn't have enough to close the deal, getting outscored 15-0 to begin the final period and losing 98-92 in a failure to capitalize on Kobe Bryant missing 15 of 19 shots amid continuing problems with a fractured right index finger.
"We understood what type of approach that they might want to take, as far as them still having a bad or bitter taste in their mouth from what happened because they've got a lot of their same guys back," Shannon Brown said after his team-high 22 points. "They were up nine, so we had to fight back. But every game for us is a big game."
Cleveland a few weeks ago. Cleveland, Boston and the Madison Square Garden stage coming up. Orlando on Monday in the Finals rematch unlike many others, mostly because it was like so many others around here.
This season, the Nets set the dubious mark for the worst start in league history to open a season (0-18) and haven't been much better since. Statistically, they're actually worse during the 3-16 stretch under interim coach/former general manager Kiki Vandeweghe.
At its current pace, New Jersey would finish the season 7-75. The Philadelphia 76ers sit at the all-time bottom of the standings thanks to their 9-73 stumble during 1972-73. Several franchises have made a run at Philly, with the Mavericks in 1992-93 and Nuggets five years later avoiding infamy with just 11 victories.
Turning it around, relatively speaking, isn't impossible. The same miserable speculation engulfed Oklahoma City last season when the Thunder started 3-29. Kevin Durant and Co. began to coalesce in January and OKC finished 23-59.
"You take it one game at a time," Harris said. "I know how that sounds, but you can't look at what's happened before. You have to come out with a fresh mind every day and try to play hard."
The Nets of the early 2000s and those NBA Finals trips are long gone. Jason Kidd, Vince Carter, Kenyon Martin and Richard Jefferson return to the Izod Center in different uniforms now. Harris leads the current nucleus of Brook Lopez, Yi Jianlian and Courtney Lee. Of those four, only Lopez hasn't missed significant time this season.
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